


Poetic Justice

by not_here_leave_a_message



Category: Motherland: Fort Salem (TV)
Genre: Angst, But Scylla is a terrorist and this is a peek into her mind during the mall attack and beyond so, But hey this was written before 1.07 and all things considered I think I did pretty good! :D, Character Study, Darker!Scylla, F/F, It's the military., Just be aware of that., Like no blood or detail., Some description of violence but nothing super-graphic, Updating the tags in light of 1.07 reveal, slightly AU, strong language and swearing because ya know., three-shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:14:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23895172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_here_leave_a_message/pseuds/not_here_leave_a_message
Summary: "Fuck the military.  Fuck the Army.  And fuck each and every person who thanked them for their unwilling and forced service and sacrifice.  They had done away with the civilian draft decades before.  The witch draft was unjust, conscription was unjust, and if she had to take thousands of lives to show that, she would.  The army wanted their pound of flesh so badly?They would have it."Scylla-centric fic.
Relationships: Raelle Collar/Scylla Ramshorn
Comments: 21
Kudos: 100





	1. Pound of Flesh

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! In another twist of fate, I've actually got another fic hot off the presses, and I wanted to get it at least partially out before tomorrow's new episode. 
> 
> Something to note, this first chapter is almost exclusively the mall scene. Raylla doesn't start until part 2, and even then, the focus is squarely on Scylla, so just be aware of that! Anyone who may be familiar with my works knows that I love me an introspective fic, and this one is no different. I find Scylla as a character to be incredibly fascinating, and I hope I've done her justice. 
> 
> Any mistakes are my own, etc. I finished this literally last night and only let it sit for a few hours before reading through it to edit, instead of my normal several days to weeks. Oh well!
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy!

When they’d first told her the plan, she knew they thought she’d be opposed. Something in the words written in steam on her mirror, about the careful phrasing, tipped her off. 

_We have an assignment for you._

_Delicate._

_Large-scale._

Gentle wording, side-stepping. Pussy-footing. It was going to be a big job, one of the largest attacks they’d ever attempted, and they didn’t think she could handle that blunt truth, and that irked her. It irked her that they thought soft words would dull the sharp edge of what had to be done. That they clearly thought she was ready, but were still hesitant to tell her the full extent of what she would be doing: the amount of lives she’d be taking. 

As if she wasn’t bathed in blood she had spilled in the name of The Spree. As if she had no idea of the hundreds The Spree had killed in single attacks before. As if she hadn’t had a hand in more than one of those attacks, and had done so willingly, knowing the cost. What had to be done, had to be done. It was war, after all, and she was willing to deliver their message, by any means necessary. 

It irked her that they seemed to have forgotten that. Had she not been loyal? Had she not proved herself, over and over and over again, to be prepared to sacrifice whatever it was they asked of her? She had already agreed to join the Army, the one thing she’d sworn she would never do: yet she had followed through on that promise to The Spree. It made sense, really, and they’d explained that to her: she could run, or she could accept the Army’s promise to turn her into a weapon, and then use that weapon to tear it down from the inside. The visceral image had appeased that darkness Scylla held within her. 

She’d agreed to risk her neck, life and limb to infiltrate the institution of witch slavery, in the name of liberation. In the name of The Spree. She’d agreed to everything they’d asked of her, and then some. She had sought them out, after all. She had sacrificed so much of herself to them already: to their training, to their lessons and teachings. Blood, sweat, and tears.

So yes, she’d been irked, with those gentle words. There was no point in sugar-coating or omitting the devastation of what they were planning: Scylla was going to do it anyway. Not only was it an honor to be chosen for such a mission, but it felt like it was about time. She’d more than proven herself to them.

“I can do it,” she’d said coolly, keeping her simmering rage in check, hands folded behind her back. 

_Many will die._

“I am aware.”

_This mission cannot be abandoned._

“I don’t want to abandon it,” she allowed some of her annoyance at their doubt to come through, feeling her eyebrow twitch. She wouldn’t allow herself to show more than that, though. Anything could be read as defiance. And The Spree did not do defiance. Some healthy questioning of authority was allowed, but in small doses, and only with certain…balloons. Some had more personality than others.

_This mission cannot fail._

“It won’t,” she shook her head almost imperceptibly and allowed her lip to tick up at the corner.

_You cannot fail._

She’d held in a scoff. “I won’t,” she said, nearly allowing a scowl to slip. 

She was given the full details not long after. It was a simple plan, honestly. Shape-shifting made everything much easier. She was told the location, where she would find her weapon and the best time to set it off. She was told the specific seed, and given free liberty to sing it as she pleased. She did like that, about The Spree. They understood that, like song itself, expression was what the voice was for. So much emotion could be conveyed: so much pain. It was almost poetic. 

Poetic justice. 

So she stood outside of Tracey’s in the mall, exactly where she’d been told to be. She’d arrived early, perused the linoleum tiled halls, busy with celebration. She’d been handed a flag when she’d walked in and held it loosely in her hand, watching faces walk by her, none the wiser of the snake in their midst. To them, she wasn’t a witch. She wasn’t their reckoning. She was just another face in the crowd, and it felt delicious, to blend so well, knowing her power. She didn’t know how many people were there. She’d not been given a number, just told it was going to be big, and just looking around, she knew it would be. 

Sometimes, if she was entirely honest, she had her doubts. Not about The Spree, per se. But about their methods. It was a thought she kept so buried within her, that even Extractors – witches specifically trained to tear a mind apart looking for information – would not have been able to pull it out of her. Sometimes, in the darkest of her doubts, she wondered if her parents would have approved of her joining The Spree. But without them, without her parents around, shielding her (smothering her), she had no one. And she had seen what The Spree could do, and what they stood for. She had never understood her parents’ aversion to aligning with them, and a small part of her wondered what they would think of her: doing that which they had been too cowardly to do. 

She shook her head. That wasn’t true. Her parents had been brave, defying an institution that wanted them dead, and that had ultimately succeeded in killing them. But they had also been cowards: running and hiding when they could have been fighting back. In the end, it hardly mattered: they ended up in the ground anyway, and sometimes Scylla could still feel them, well into the night: feel the memory of life as it left them and death, which had become a friend to her, had its way with what remained. 

She tightened her jaw, her resolve steeling. It was extreme, yes. The Spree’s methods had always been extreme. Public executions. Recompense, hangings en masse of civilians over the graves of their fore-sisters and mothers, killed in the Burning and Persecution Times. Taking back the lives that so long ago had been taken from witches. 

It was extreme, yes, but it made sense. It got the attention of everyone around them. It brought attention to their cause, negative or no. It forced the public to reckon with that which they had reduced the witches among them to become: chattel. Lambs to be raised and slaughtered, on a conveyor belt, from womb to tomb all in the name of The Motherland and the civilians too afraid to try to understand that which was different from them. 

Fuck The Motherland. Let it burn until all that remained were the ashes of its power and glory, and let Scylla drink of them from her cupped palms. It lit a fire within her, to think of herself as one of those who had struck the match to finally tear down the entire fucking thing. 

Let it burn. 

She could taste the ash in her mouth, a sudden shot of adrenaline spiking through her. 

The Spree were violent, but so were the military. People who advocated for non-violent solutions to violent oppressors were nothing more than complacent. Pacifists allowed narratives to shift until annihilation of a perceived other was the only option: justified the unjust actions of those in power until their twisted agendas were seen as acceptable, and Scylla? 

Scylla was the resistance. The Spree forced those who would look the other way to face the consequences of their decisions. Forced them to acknowledge that even indecision had consequences on thousands of innocent lives. She’d never asked to be born a witch, and she’d certainly never asked to be born into a world where that meant she only had one option: serve and die for an institution that cared about nothing else but its insatiable thirst for continued magical blood. 

Fuck the military. Fuck the Army. And fuck each and every person who thanked them for their unwilling and forced service and sacrifice. They had done away with the civilian draft decades before. The witch draft was unjust, conscription was unjust, and if she had to take thousands of lives to show that, she would. The army wanted their pound of flesh so badly?

They would have it. 

She stood outside of Tracey’s and spotted the balloon, high up. She called to it imperceptively, tempting it closer and closer and closer until she could hold it in her hand. Raw chaos, was what was inside, and it rang in her ears. Scylla was familiar with the sounds, smells, and tastes of death. The Army had sharpened her awareness of her penchant for sensing it, of knowing it not as a foe but as an elusive friend, and she did have to be thankful for that. Between The Spree and the Army, she was already far more powerful than she was aware that she ever could be, and she would only become more powerful. She could taste the revenge, and it tasted sweet. 

She started her seed, hitting the frequency to agitate the destruction inside. Building, building, building. 

The sounds of the first bodies didn’t register. She could hear only the quiet whisper of unleashed devastation, and gentle caress of air as the balloon fell. Death was a force, not a being: something that few knew or accepted. Death obeyed no one, but could be persuaded with sweet siren calls, seeds set so deep in the larynx as to represent the sounds of the underworld itself. Sound, weaponized. 

As more bodies fell, Scylla couldn’t help but smile. So easy, so simple. She didn’t know what The Spree had been so worried about. The sound of footfalls thundering upstairs and then the squelch of flesh and bone as it hit earth filled the mall, and as more bodies fell, she took her leave, saying her “We are The Spree” like the curse she so wanted it to be. A darkness to be feared, to be admired, to be revered and to be heard.

She would come to find out that, with the sweet sound of a siren song, she had ended the lives of more than sixteen-hundred people. One of the largest attacks in Spree history, and she had carried it out. The blue balloon in her mirror thanked her for her service, and she didn’t bother to hide her smirk as she thanked it for the opportunity to prove herself. 

_We have another assignment for you._ Read the words in her mirror, and she nodded, folding her arms behind her back. 

“I’m all ears,” she smiled at her own joke. 

She knew a balloon couldn’t roll its eyes, but she knew that whoever was on the other end likely was. 

There was no hesitation from them, that time. The plan was far vaguer: an extraction. She wasn’t given more information than a name: Raelle Collar. And she was given the freedom to go about her mission as she saw fit (she had, after all, earned it), the words in steam reading: _By any means necessary._

And oh, she could work with that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anddd, that was part one! I sort of almost view the next two parts as different entities to this one (as originally, this was going to be the only part), but they all do have a lot in common and sort of explore Scylla's awakenings as she falls in love with Raelle, so I've decided to keep them all together in the same story.
> 
> Again, I'm not condoning Scylla's actions, but I find the character to be absolutely fascinating and she took hold of me and wouldn't let go until I wrote this, so here you go! Drop a comment if you liked it, I plan on posting the next part fairly soon (and you can all rejoice, all three parts are finished) because tbh I am sort of nervous about 1.07 and parts of Scylla's revealed past clashing with the one I've cooked up for her in this fic, not that it really matters as I'm pretty vague, but! That just means more content for you lot, quicker! :)


	2. Reprehension

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, continuing this pretty quickly! I usually leave more time between updates but as I sort of stated last chapter in the end notes, kind of put myself on a rush with this one, I have a feeling some of my writing will become inaccurate by 1.07 so just want to get it out before then! 
> 
> Un-betad, all mistakes are mine, etc. Tbh next part will probably be up around noon tomorrow.
> 
> Enjoy!

Raelle Collar didn’t turn out to be too hard to find, and it was pretty obvious to Scylla why The Spree would be interested in her. 

The first thing Scylla’d done, after receiving her assignment, was soak in the victory of a job well done. She couldn’t help but stay up late that night, lying in her bunk, a triumphant grin on her features. She’d done that: she’d carried out one of the largest attacks in Spree history (until that cruise ship). And no one knew. No one was any the wiser, and it felt good. She felt almost…giddy, so she allowed herself a moment to savor the victory before getting to work the next day. 

It wasn’t hard to fashion a disguise and walk into the administration building. Files on conscription were kept under lock and key, but Scylla was nothing if not a smooth talker. It took her some time to gather all of the intel she would need to convince one of the wards of the records that she was indeed a commanding officer, needing to see files on their newest recruits, but it made getting access to the record room almost…too easy. 

She breezed in and quickly found the file on Raelle Collar. The file was nearly empty, a regular manila folder with a flash-paper photo, burned at the same time that Raelle’s metal was being burned as she took her oath. There was little other information on it. Her mother, Willa Collar: killed in the line of duty. 

Pity. 

Her father, a civilian.

Another pity.

Her date of birth, place of origin, and nothing else, but the photo was all that Scylla really needed, and Raelle’s distinct features made for quick memorization, and she replaced the file where she’d found it and walked out of the Hall of Records, nodding thankfully at the helpful ward. 

After that, she’d tried to figure out how she could go about finding this new girl. She’d be with a unit, so getting her alone could be challenging, but Scylla was nothing if not charming, and she was sure that she could handle a simple unit of young and inexperienced blood. 

It turned out, though, that Raelle came to her. 

Sort of. 

She’d already spotted the new recruit heading to her first training session, Scylla sat in the shadows, just enjoying the day. She had just decided that she would stay put, to try and catch a glimpse of her mark again after the class, but she didn’t have to wait long. She’d spotted Raelle leaving training not much later, which piqued her curiosity, and it was all too easy to follow, Raelle seemingly on a mission, though to or for what, Scylla didn’t know. 

Still, she walked with determination, her footfalls full of purpose but her entire back tense. She was angry, upset, and that piqued Scylla’s interest further. So soon was she questioning the military? 

Well, if her mother had died in combat, it made sense. 

Talking with Raelle was too easy. The girl was rage and fire and fury, but also sarcasm and wit all wrapped up into a tiny, beautiful package. Raelle held a passion in her, an intensity, that resonated with Scylla in a way she hadn’t expected. 

In many ways, she saw a lot of herself in Raelle, and that was why it was easy to see why The Spree wanted her. 

Not that Scylla knew why they wanted Raelle, they hadn’t told her and she hadn’t asked. But she could see how they could make a recruit out of her, easily. Raelle had a lot of reasons to hate the military, and it seemed that she did. With time, Scylla could see it being easy to coax her to become Spree. Especially as she told Raelle the same thing that The Spree had told her about the military: beat them at their own game. Especially as Raelle pinned her to the door and worked her fingers inside of her as Scylla breathlessly whispered her own damn plan to take down the military institution into Raelle’s compliant ear.

Out was in, indeed. 

Especially as that little rendezvous became a recurring thing. And it was…nice, to have a bit of fun with her mark. The Spree had given her free reign, after all, on how to lure Raelle too her. She may as well get something out of the deal too, no? And Raelle was…surprising. 

Very surprising. 

It wasn’t just in her odd shyness, her uncharacteristic openness, her instant connection to Scylla, nor was it in the way that Scylla found herself reciprocating all of those things and then some when it came to Raelle. 

Raelle was surprising because she was something that Scylla was not. She was light. 

She had a darkness within her, yes, but it was overshadowed, blown away by something that Scylla had long ago lost: snuffed out within herself so that she could survive. 

Empathy. Raelle had it in spades, and it aided her intensity in unexpected ways. It made her feel…so much, so often, and so much feeling was what caused her so much pain. Was what made her so angry, what made her so resistant, so resilient. Where Scylla had long ago succumbed to her darkness, let it override her sense of human connection in the name of what needed to be done for the good of the future of her kind…where Scylla had sacrificed her own future for the hope that others would have one, free from conscription, Raelle lived very much in the moment. Her decisions were rash, fueled by her emotions, by her overwhelming pain. She didn’t see a future: at least, not one with her in it.

It hurt to see, almost. But Scylla recognized that pain for what it was: a weapon. The Spree likely saw it too. 

She’d found herself musing about what it would be like to have Raelle as a fellow Spree, and the thought wasn’t horrible. It would be…nice, she decided. 

But the problem with empathy was that, for all of the pain it reaped, it also reaped pleasure. Lots of it. Different from the visceral pleasure and satisfaction of a righteous kill. Different from the pleasures Scylla had in her life: death and darkness. Raelle was light in every sense of the word. She spoke about her unit first with contempt, and then with begrudging acceptance, and then, when Scylla tried to engage her with talks of the Bellweathers, Raelle had actually defended the princess of the military.

That had shocked Scylla, truly. She had thought that they were on the same page: a Bellweather was a Bellweather, military darlings who benefited as much as civilians from their enslavement. But Raelle’s empathy allowed her to see what Scylla refused to. What she had to refuse to: humanizing her enemy made it harder to justify that which she’d had to do, and would continue to have to do. She wasn’t an idiot, but Raelle’s faith, her light…exacerbated by her empathy, allowed her to see the good in someone where she ought not.

In Scylla, for example. 

But Scylla had tried to push that thought down as soon as it had come up. What she did, she knew, was considered reprehensible. But how was it any different than what the Army was doing, had done, and would continue to do? Was it any different from what the “civilians” they so vehemently defended with their lives would do to them, had they not agreed to fight their wars? And Raelle, to some extent, knew that. Scylla knew that she knew that. At least, insofar as the military was concerned.

As to the civilians…Scylla wasn’t sure.

The problem was that Raelle still found the loss of life, human life, civilian life, reprehensible. Unacceptable. And that made sense: her father was a civilian. Raelle was steeped in both worlds: the magical and the mundane. She knew civilians and she knew witches, so convincing her that killing either for a cause would be difficult, to put it mildly. 

But well. Anyone could be broken. 

Scylla sometimes wondered if that was the end goal. If so: why? Spree didn’t usually seek someone out as a recruit, though they had tasked her with keeping a sharp eye out for anyone she thought she could pull to their cause. She was sure, with time, she could pull Raelle in: it would take some poisoning of her empathy, some twisting of her (already existing) ideals until they pointed firmly to witch liberation (at all costs), but it could be done. 

The question was…did she want it to be done? 

She would have said yes, had she been asked before. 

She would have said of course: having another Spree, one she enjoyed very much, as a companion, the both of them, side by side, honing their weapons until they could tear down the entire institution together?

Sounded romantic, and Scylla was all for it. 

But now?

Now, in the infirmary, feeling Raelle’s presence through the doors they wouldn’t allow them to pass through…now, she wasn’t so sure. 

She had known that Raelle was a good person. That much was obvious. Raelle was angry, but she wasn’t a natural-born killer, either. Nor would she be a made one, despite what Scylla had believed before. 

She felt her hands shaking and quickly folded her arms tightly around herself, sucking in a deep breath and trying to calm the buzzing in her body. Nerves.

She hadn’t had nerves since her admittance into The Spree. She didn’t like it: shaking wasn’t a good look on her. Made her look weak. She clenched her jaw and turned her gaze upward, fighting what felt suspiciously like tears springing to her eyes. 

She would not cry. Not for this stupid, beautiful, idiotic, little witch. A witch that had tried to heal a dying fucking man. And in doing so had nearly killed herself. 

What a fucking idiot. 

Scylla felt the air around her crackle and she set her jaw, steeling herself. She forced all of her emotions down, trying to remain calm, and cool, and collected. 

It was bad enough she was even near the infirmary. Abigail and Tally weren’t far down the hall, and she couldn’t lose control of herself with them around. She couldn’t…process it all. She couldn’t…

She’d turned without a word to anyone else and left, too afraid of her own physical response to trust staying there any longer. 

Porter had been a necessary sacrifice, and an unforeseen one. She had known him when they were kids, both on the run, both children of dodgers and both in need of that shared trauma connection. He’d been her first…everything. Confidant. Partner. 

Betrayal.

She hadn’t loved him. Honestly, except for her parents, she had been fairly certain that even at that young age, she didn’t really know how to love. It was hard enough to even love her parents half the time: they were always gone, trying to make connections, trying to decide their next moves, always hiding, always locked in the next room, always locked in secrets and lies and deceit. She hated them as much as she loved them, sometimes, and Porter had understood that because he had to deal with it, too. 

But Porter didn’t understand, in the end. Not really. He’d always talked a big game to impress her, but when their imaginary plans took on any concrete aspects, he would back down, and she would be forced to back down, too, lest she reveal that she had every intention of acting on her darkest and most violent fantasies. Even then, she had been all too aware of all that had been taken from her, and all that had been taken from witch-kind. Even then, she knew that she was woven from a darker cloth than most. Even then, she would have killed Porter, if someone who was serious about action and change, would have asked her to. 

It was too risky to keep him alive. He had seen her darkness, her desperation, her own pain, come to the surface too much, too often. He had heard her plans, her wants, her hatred. He had loved her despite it, but it was true: she hadn’t changed. People who spoke as she had didn’t suddenly bury the hatchet: they got better at hiding it behind their back. Which was exactly what she had done, and he knew it, even if he didn’t want to admit it to himself. He knew the moment he saw her again that she was Spree: that she was lying to everyone around her, including Raelle. 

That she was going to hurt Raelle, too. 

He was a risk that The Spree weren’t keen to have, and that Scylla wanted gone (she told herself). Especially when he started speaking to Raelle, making her question all that Scylla had been building between them for fucking weeks. He was a headache she could easily dispense with. And with the simple words written on her mirror in steam: _Deal with him_...she had. An unbearable sadness had led to his literal downfall, and she was fairly okay with that. It was…odd, to know that she had caused the death of one of her own kind, but it was a necessary sacrifice, and one she was willing to make for the sake of her mission. For the sake of their mission. 

It was what came after that rocked her to her very core. Walking back to her dorm after a relaxed training with her fellow necros and a few of the visitors, all the while entirely aware that she could add another kill to her long list, and feeling in high spirits over that despite it all. Everything was solved: Porter would be dead, Raelle would stop asking questions, things could continue as normal. 

Scylla hadn’t seen it, only rounding the corner in time to see Raelle pass out on the ground next to Porter’s body, but she heard about it immediately, from those who had watch Raelle try to stop Porter’s death: Raelle, with her hands on Porter’s twitching and broken body, her seed rippling through the air with a desperate power.

The realization was slow-motion. It took her a moment to process what she was seeing, what she was hearing, and to realize the gravity of it. The true gravity. She’d seen, plenty of times, the scrapes and scars and bruises and rashes that Raelle had collected over her time of learning to heal from her mother. She’d seen that rash on Raelle’s abdomen for weeks while her body healed it, and it always sparked a sense of awe and contempt within Scylla in equal measures. Whoever Raelle had taken that from hadn’t deserved Raelle’s empathy…and yet, Raelle had taken that burden from them anyway. Raelle hadn’t asked them for a reason: her reason was because she was a good person. She took on the pain of others so that she may lessen their suffering, and that wasn’t fair, but Raelle didn’t seem to mind. She seemed to be satisfied in knowing that her sacrifice allowed others to flourish. It didn’t sit well, and it never had, with Scylla, but she’d quickly learned that Raelle put others before herself, always. 

Even if that meant putting her own life at risk. And absorbing life-threatening injuries wasn’t just energy-consuming: it involved needing a strong link, a strong base from which energy currents could be transferred…and it required Raelle to accept those injuries. She knew no other way to heal.

It meant that Porter’s broken neck, his internal bleeding, cracked ribs, compound fractures, brain damage, ripped muscles, broken heart, scattered and fading memories…would become Raelle’s. It meant Raelle accepted death in Porter’s place, and the fear that shot through Scylla at that realization was unlike anything she had ever felt in her entire life. 

No. 

Death was a friend, but not in that moment. In that moment, she would have sang her siren song to lure Death even to herself, rather than allow Raelle to succumb to it. It all happened in less than a second, but Raelle passed out as those ahead of Scylla ran to help her.

In that moment, Scylla realized. Raelle would never be Spree. Could never be Spree. Raelle was good. Good. Beyond any reach of absolute corruption. Selfless. Selflessness on such a grand scale could not be taught, could not be learned, could not be trained and could not be indoctrinated. Selflessness like that left a constricting feeling in Scylla’s chest as she walked, aimless, half-blind by the tears she was still forcing back. She didn’t know where to go. 

The thought of going back to her dorm made her feel sick. The thought of the dark of the woods was only slightly calming, and the chaos that reigned within her called for the darkness and silence of mushrooms and dead leaves, the cool feel of rich and fertile earth beneath her, so she allowed her feet to lead her there. To her small graveyard, where she allowed herself to collapse, falling to the ground, legs crossed, and burying her face in her hands before releasing a sob. 

It…hurt. It hurt a lot, more pain than she could remember. More acute than her memories of such strong emotions. 

She was fucked. If Raelle had successfully linked with Porter, there was no telling what she would know, what memories she may have absorbed. There was nothing she could do about that, though, and truly, there was a chance Raelle wouldn’t have received any at all: if she was too late, if Porter had died instantly. If, if, if.

Her breath hitched as she continued to spiral.

It wasn’t that, though. It was…the light. The goodness that Raelle held within her, as bright as the sun and twice as hot, filled with a passion for life that burned through her and lit her eyes and pitched her laugh…it had no place with Spree. It had no place with Scylla. 

Raelle was Good. Scylla’d always known, but she’d never known to what extent. Raelle, who selflessly and continually put Scylla first. Who did the same for her unit. For a civilian neighbor. 

For a fucking stranger who had been rude to her and had been all too willing to steal her girlfriend when Scylla had pretended to be open to it. 

Scylla strangled a sob before it could escape. No. She couldn’t…she couldn’t do this. She couldn’t let this change…change her mission. Change her endgame. She couldn’t lose track of the whole point of this: of why she’d killed Porter in the first place. Of why she’d done everything that she had done. Liberation. Freedom. 

The thought calmed her. Porter was a necessary sacrifice, she reminded herself, over and over, slowly collecting the pieces she’d allowed herself to fall to. This changed nothing…Raelle lying in the infirmary, passed out from trying to heal Porter, meant nothing. _Couldn’t_ mean anything. Scylla’s tears at that reality couldn’t mean anything. The unease and nausea she still felt in her stomach, the too-tight feeling in her chest…they couldn’t mean anything. 

And the fear? The fear that burned, hot and bright, a sharp flame in her darkness, that Raelle should not be near Raelle? That Raelle was a Good Person, who had pledged her heart and her loyalty, her fealty, her life – in her own way – to Scylla. Who had done so willingly and without hesitation. Blindly. Faithfully. Readily. And without Scylla ever having to even ask.

And Scylla, who would take Raelle’s offered heart and eat it whole. Who would turn her over to The Spree, who would then do…what, with Raelle? 

For the first time, possibly ever, not knowing bothered her. Not knowing had her clenching her jaw in frustration. 

It didn’t matter! 

It shouldn’t matter…

But suddenly, it did. Raelle was a light that, for a brief moment, Scylla had seen snuffed out. And a world without Raelle in it looked to be a very dark one indeed…

Raelle was too good. She was a good person, where Scylla was not. She’d always known she wasn’t, and she’d never had any qualms about it, but…she’d been deluding herself, to believe that she could turn Raelle to the cause of The Spree. Someone who loved so openly, who loved so quickly so as to futilely try to save someone she’d just met, a near-total stranger, from death…by accepting that death for herself? Raelle was on a suicide mission from all of the empathy that bubbled within her: life personified. 

And what would life like that, think of its end? What _could_ life feel towards its counterpart – death – but disgust? Fear? Betrayal?

It was a punch in the gut, but one that she needed. She needed that pain. She couldn’t lose sight of why she’d even started talking to Raelle in the first place. 

_Connection._

_Extraction._

She closed her eyes and took a shuddering breath. 

_Connection._

_Extraction._

She contracted her shoulder blades and forced herself to sit straighter. 

_Connection._

_Extraction._

Forced the tears to stop. Forced herself to breathe.

Porter was dead. Raelle wouldn’t remember. 

_Connection._

_Extraction._

Raelle would be fine. It would all be fine. Raelle would wake up, and she could hold her again. She could figure out if Raelle knew anything, could tell her to never do that again _for the love of goddess_ , could feel Raelle’s warmth and be relieved that her brush with death had only led to a little time in the infirmary. And that would be enough. 

It would have to be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the second part! :) Drop a line if you guys liked it, like I said this was originally supposed to be a one-shot but after finishing the first chapter I just couldn't stop, the muse kept giving so I kept writing! I really, really loved that scene at the end of episode 3, with Raelle trying to help Porter and the look on Scylla's face when she realized what she was seeing...I don't know about you guys but I saw in her expression "Oh, you're like Good^TM-good" and I think that realization sort of helps snap her out of her own hubris, so I wanted to address it a bit. 
> 
> I also 100% don't buy Amalia's "Killing Porter has Scylla starting to question things" in the sense that I don't think Scylla feels bad at all for killing him, however I do believe it is the first crack in The Spree's indoctrination of Scylla, because Porter was a witch (warlock?) and we know she wants their liberation. I think she would still justify it, in her mind, but I think it would plant that first seed (heh) of doubt, so I tried to capture that as well. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading! Leave a comment or some kudos if you enjoyed!


	3. Recompense

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, the final part! This one largely covers the end of 1.05 but loosely spans 1.04-1.05. 
> 
> This is still un-betad, all errors are mine, I don't own Motherland: Fort Salem, etc. 
> 
> Enjoy! :)

It wasn’t enough, and she’d known that even as she’d tried to convince herself of it. Even as she went through the motions, deflecting the questions Raelle asked her about Porter. Even as she confessed that maybe she really liked Raelle. Far more than she had ever intended, and certainly far more than would be considered acceptable by The Spree. 

It wasn’t enough, and she’d known that from the moment she’d told herself that it would have to be. 

It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough because Raelle trusted her, and for once, the thought of taking advantage of that trust made Scylla feel physically sick. The thought of…the thought of looking into Raelle’s eyes and lying to her, more than she already had done, already was doing…hurt. It actually physically hurt and Scylla hated it. She hated it. Why couldn’t she just be cold, calculating Scylla? How had this happened? How had some no-name recruit from the The Cession worked through all of Scylla’s very ideals? How had this fucking dumbass, who loved intensely and with her whole heart, stupidly and without a second thought for her own wellbeing…how had she become the most important thing to Scylla? When had this mission gone from smooth sailing to stormy seas? When had Scylla started drowning, and why didn’t it bother her at all now that she’d realized it?

It should have. The visit from the other Spree operative had certainly instilled, however temporarily, a necessary reminder of her mission. It propelled her into half-heartedly trying to get herself invited to the Bellwether wedding, and it was what pushed her to crash it, too. But despite that, the threat from Spree…it hadn’t worked. Her heart wasn’t in it. She went to the wedding, yes. But it wasn’t only because they told her to. It was also because…she needed to see Raelle. A storm was brewing, and it all hinged on her, and she didn’t know what to do. And it was the first time that had ever happened. 

She couldn’t bring herself to just…continue the mission. Not without knowing why The Spree wanted Raelle. If Raelle would refuse to kill civilians, which Scylla knew she absolutely would…then what would she be good for? 

And their absolute refusal to tell her did not help at all with the uneasy feeling that it wasn’t anything good. Gone was the idea that they were just trying to recruit a powerful (Scylla had realized) witch into their fold, and more sinister plans had started to form themselves in Scylla’s mind. Plans that she would do, were she one of the heads of Spree, upon learning of a powerful new witch. 

Plans that were at odds with all that Spree stood for. If they weren’t going to attempt to turn Raelle, then…what else could they do? Study her. Use her. Break her. There were dark magics the likes of which Scylla had only begun to tap, that The Spree could use to do any number of things with or to Raelle, and none of them good. What were they planning? Why did they want her?

And why wouldn’t they tell Scylla that Raelle would be safe? It almost was enough to irk her: were she a leader in Spree, she would have just…fucking lied. It frustrated her, that they couldn’t just give her an answer, but at the same time, she appreciated the truth via omission. And that truth was that no, they couldn’t say Raelle would be safe. They wouldn’t tell Scylla anything because she was just a pawn, despite all she’d done for them. 

It left a sour taste in her mouth. She didn’t regret it. She didn’t want to take it back. But Raelle was special, and without a reason…without a plan, without a clear course, she couldn’t…she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t justify it. She couldn’t justify handing Raelle over to an unknown fate, despite bitterly acknowledging that leaving her in the Army also left her to an uncertain end.

That wasn’t true. Both routes spelled out eventual death, but from what, would be the question. At least with the Army, that was somewhat predictable. That, Raelle had signed up for, even if she hadn’t been given much of a choice on the matter. The Spree, well…Raelle had no idea she’d fallen into that trap. Raelle, her trusting, beautiful girlfriend. She would be better off in the Army, in the very institution that enslaved witches in exchange for their “freedom”, and the thought of that disgusted Scylla. 

How could she even think that? She’d been fighting for and alongside Spree. She’d killed for them, in very large numbers, and she’d dare say that she’d enjoyed it, because it was all for the cause.

And now? 

What was that cause, exactly? Because it certainly wasn’t liberation, if they were going to do something to Raelle. If they were going to force her to do things against her will. If they were going to use her. If they did that, they were no better than the Army, than the civilians who looked at them with awe and contempt and hatred, and it made her head spin to suddenly be on the wrong side of her own argument. 

When had she become a part of the very thing that she thought she had been fighting against?

The only thing she knew were the thoughts that had been on loop in her mind all day. She had three options: To obey Spree, to betray Spree, or to dodge. To run. To take Raelle with her and run away, go into hiding, live as her parents had until they were found and killed by one faction or the other, the Army or Spree, at that point it wouldn’t matter. 

No scenario was a good one, though there was…one other plan. A plan within a plan, a lifeline. But it was convoluted and far-fetched and likely wouldn’t work, but she’d had to try, and so she’d carefully researched, planned, and finally had branded her little S onto Raelle’s palm: connected them on an entirely new level. Only time would tell if her fourth option…her desperate one, half-formed and feverish, would come to fruition, and she didn’t hold out high hopes for it, or for herself. As The Spree had said…her future looked bleak, no matter which way sideways this all went. 

As it were, she actually wanted to show Raelle the lighthouse. To give her a little something, a true piece of Scylla: a piece that wasn’t a lie or a half-truth, and she’d been giving more and more of herself than she’d ever planned to do. It was scary…but she trusted Raelle. And that realization made her heart pound and her palms sweat. She trusted Raelle and Raelle trusted her, and no matter what happened, that trust was going to be shattered. Maybe it would be better for Scylla to just die, so that maybe, Raelle would never know the truth. Never look at her with the pain she knew she would, if she’d known what Scylla had done. She loved Raelle with all of her being, which surprised her, but she was resigned to it. It had been happening for a while: she had been falling since perhaps their first meeting. There was no point in denying it. 

But the thought of Raelle’s expression…her pain, her confusion, as she realized the things Scylla had done…she knew that, when Raelle told her she would always be there, no matter who Scylla was…she had said it in ignorance. Scylla wasn’t naive nor stupid enough to believe that love could heal the rift that would open between them. Scylla knew that Raelle would not be able to fathom the hate Scylla held in her heart. She wouldn’t be able to reconcile the mass-murderer with her sexy-weird girlfriend, and nor should she have to. 

Scylla just had to accept that, but it didn’t make the thought hurt any less. She’d rather be dead than watch unbridled horror fill those blue eyes she so desperately loved. 

She had a choice to make, and she made it, cradling Raelle close and watching the last five minutes tick by on the clock. The hour of extraction came and went, and they continued swaying, Scylla’s pulse roaring in her ears. She could have brought Raelle to the lighthouse, but what kind of life would running have given them? A miserable one. She’d been on the run for most of her life. She knew how exhausting it was. How not having a sense of a permanent home could erode the sense of self. It wouldn’t be fair to ask Raelle to do that with her, not without coming clean, and she wasn’t sure she could do that. She finally had her love in her arms, and she…she didn’t want to let that go. 

So she didn’t. She shut her eyes as she whispered “I love you,” and felt Raelle nuzzle her neck and plant a gentle kiss right in the crook. Raelle didn’t say it back, but she didn’t have to. Scylla knew. Scylla had known. Now she was just acknowledging her own feelings, too. 

It all happened too fast for her to really figure out, but she kind of didn’t care. Whatever happened…if The Spree came for her, if she went into hiding, if the Army hunted her down for abandoning and killed her like they did her parents…it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Raelle was safe. That Scylla hadn’t turned her over to The Spree, that Scylla hadn’t betrayed her own morals of freedom for all witches, by condemning Raelle to an unknown fate. 

Maybe it was the wrong decision, she didn’t know. But she found she didn’t care, even as she felt the debilitating blow right as the chaos started: strong arms grabbing her from behind and a strong blow to the throat rendering her vocal chords temporarily useless, before she heard a quick seed whispered behind her and everything went black. 

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that was part 3! I know that it's pretty unlikely, but tbh I think Scylla's branding of Raelle, while entirely an act of love, could also serve another purpose down the road, hence the mention of a possible fourth option (what that option is, I don't know, and I don't think Scylla necessarily does either). Scylla's got it so bad for Raelle but I think she's also resourceful, and the brand is such an unusual but important gift that I could see Scylla potentially having another reason for giving it to Raelle. 
> 
> But, I digress! This is where this fic ends, I don't usually post fics mid-season because I'm either a.) late to the party or b.) waiting for the season to end so I can make a fic as canon-compliant as possible. But I've decided to just go for it here because truly, I find Scylla fascinating. As the series progresses, I'll update the tags as necessary.
> 
> Also idk about all of you, but I'm not ready for tonight's new ep. 
> 
> Anyway, drop a comment or a kudos if you enjoyed, feedback keeps the muse happy! Thanks for reading! :)


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